I came to you with best intentions.

Whew.

I FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT! I'm calling it a first draft because the rough draft was very, very rough. I rewrote huge chunks, reordered a bit, and turned it from a mess of scenes into a story.

I'm going to eat dinner, get the kids ready for bed, reread it and work synonym magic, then send it off to my beta (who I hope doesn't mind that I'm so late--if so, an intense beta hunt will be on!) and my artist.

My only major worry now is tense. I rewrote it in past tense, the draft was half past, half present, and I wonder if it would sound better in present tense. Thinky thoughts.

On this editing process: my life and insecurities made it difficult to focus. I'm glad I printed it off and rewrote it from the paper, instead of reskimming the same Google Doc file over and over, but it took a lot of time and effort to work through the mess of my rough draft.

Oh hell yes. Editing it after it's beta read will be a breeze compared to what I just wrangled. Whew.